To reiterate, Heilberg is not a public defender. Chris's case just didn't roll across his desk as the next one in line. The judge specifically called him and asked if he would take it on. Heilberg did a cursory glance at the bare minimum of Chris, a transexual, with mental issues, who was accused of a horrible crime, who also has a long history of internet shenanigans. Heilberg is also from Charlottesville, which is pretty progressive for that area of Virginia, and the Greene county courts wanted to make doubly sure they didn't stick Chris with some overworked public defender because they know full well what happens in Charlottesville in terms of protests could spread out there. Remember, the whole nazis and torches riots were only a few years ago. So if Chris gets crucified, sent to prison for a decade, they didn't want the blood on their hands and wanted someone who knew what they were doing and would actually defend Chris.
Having worked with lawyers for a long time, there's been a turn to cater to LGBT type folks, and Heilberg most likely took on Chris to pad his record, so to speak. Lawyers are a crafty bunch and they're always thinking about their record at the end of the day. Heilberg mostly has been representing drunks and pill poppers, long gone from the days of representing the DC snipers and other pretty high end cases, so with Chris, he thought it would be a slam dunk. Some people accused Chris of something horrifying, but he's just an innocent tard, caught up in meanies on that internets making shit up about him. He even confirmed this early on after taking on Chris by issuing statements that people shouldn't believe what they heard. I have a suspicion that he had no clue about Chris other than his record and some snippets of stuff from the "web".
Honestly, Chris duped him with his various copes. Heilberg probably thought he'd get Chris into some testing, evaluations, and come out saving the poor troon tard, getting off those charges (at the time were still a misdemeanor), getting Chris compassionate help, and coming out as hero to the local LGBT community, maybe even getting more business in the process. A lot of people don't understand, but in C-ville, catering to the LGBT crowd is a big business.
Then the tests come back that Chris isn't actually insane, he just doesn't care, and he won't shutup. So by the time Heilberg is trying to put a defense together, Chris is spilling his guts, admitting everything he did, admitting it was wrong, passing every insanity test with flying colors, writing letters to people about how he wants Barb dead or carted off so he can have the house, and doing everything he can to shove a wrench into the defense.
Then along comes last summer, when Chris's charges get upgraded to a felony, and Heilberg throws the tard card down as some hail Mary play because, thanks to Chris's big mouth, he's dead to rights. So now the only options are:
Praying the courts buy into Chris was so autistic when he was doing the deed, that he had no clue what was going on and that it wasn't wrong because of some autism thing.
Accepting Chris was completely of sound mind when he was Barb breaking and trying to mitigate the big boy punishment that awaits Chris.
I don't think Heilberg is any different than some ween trying to take Chris on, gatekeeping, and attempting to manipulate Chris into something he isn't. It's just that he didn't take on the burden of Chris willingly in order to control him, and he's finding out that trying to herd Chris into a functional human is virtually impossible.
